Letters from John C. Graham 1943

Letters from John Crawford Graham to niece

Buhl, Alabama  

February 26, 1943

Mrs. Eunice Lee

If you are Eunice Graham Lee then I am your Uncle John Graham. I left Piedmont, Missouri in 1905 to come to Alabama. After father died I brought the other children down. There are four of us living now, Charley, Jesse, Grace and myself.  I have a large familu. They are all married. Charles has nine or ten;Jesse has three. Grace has none. If you are my niece please write us and I will tell you all about ourselves and how we are getting along.

You Uncle John C. Graham

Sunday Afternon.

Dear Eunice,

I am writing a little more. I didn’t tell you how glad to get your letter.  We were all tickled pink and you didn’t realize you were writing your first letter to me on my 66^th birthday. 9THE 3^RD OF March)I HAVE 3 HOLIDAYS A YEAR. Christmas, Father’s Day and my birthday. I get lots of presents. Grace sent me a fine wool sweater this birthday and the rest all sent money. We are living in a good community with lots of people, two churches within a mile and a 5 teacher school just back of our house. . We have electricity in our houses and have good gravel roads. We raise cotton, corn, hay, and everything anyone would want. Daughter Lucille and James and their family have just been here and have gone to see the river. It had a 55 foot rise on. Preasha went with them.

So I must thank you for the letter and you must write again when you feel like it. JCG

Buhl, Alabama   March 21, 1943

Dear Eunice and all,

I received your last letter 2 weeks ago but have been so busy just put it off and now I have so many letters to write that we run out of news sometimes. You see, our kids are so scattered out. I will give you a list of them and where they live and the number of kids they have, so you can see it’s a man’s job keeping up with all of them.

Eula, 43,was born in Missouri has 2 girls. She lost her first husband and is married again with 3 stepchildren. She lives at Hold and has been teaching for 22 years.

Raymond, 41, was born in Missouri           and has been in the navy 23 years. He is an ensign Instructor and taught Navy boys Engineering at the University of Illinois last year. But lives in California now. He has a girl and a boy.

Lawrence, 37was born in Alabama  but lives in Pascagoula, Mississippi where he worked in a government sop. He is married with 3 kids.         Loyd, 35 has been with the government 15 years, He was inducted din the Army last fall and is now a Leutentant . He is an instructor at Swift Camp in Texas, is married but no children/ Lucille, 31 is married, lives close and has 2 boys and 2 girls. She taught school several years. Her husband is a mule dealer.

Freda, 28 is married, has 2 girls and lives in Mobile where her husband is a welder.

Estelle, 24, married bu has no children. HUSBAN WORKS IN A SHIPYARD.

Sara, 21, Married, lives in Mobile where he is an airplane mechanic, they have no children yet.

Brother Charley lives in Tuscaloosa, that is our home town but we  get mail from Buhl,Jesse lives close, Toney died 7 years ago.They have 4 children..Sister Grace who was the little crippe, is well, now big and strong and lives in California

So you can see wee are pretty well spread out. Just us two here and we are very busy all the time raising chickens and farming. We have a Negro servant here that does the rough work and we go to the curb market.

Last week we had a cold spell and lost 95 chicks, but we have the brooders full again. I have not worked for12 ears though I am well and fat. I spent 31 years in the sawmill business and I will give you a good idea of a business man. I went into the sawmill business on my own in 1909. In the year 1912 I cleared $13,000 then I bought another mill, then a store, then a lot of mules.

While we lived at Buhl, I owned a store, 2 sawmills, a barber chop, soda fount, pool rooms, a good farm and about 15 houses.

Then in 1914 I drifted down here to Romulus 8 miles south of Buhl, bought 4 good farms and a world of timber. I had a store here and one in Tuscaloosa. Then I bought a house in Tuscaloosa, then a filling station and garage, and bought and sold cars at the same time. I owned a Telephone 16, helped a central girl and made bushels and bushels of money.  I helped my kids off to school until every one graduated.. Now they love me for what I done for them, so when the timber was gone I quit.     During that time I wore out 29 cars and trucks, then the depression came and we all had to help each other so I am about like I was when I started.  Only we have a fine bunch of kids, raised them all, and now they have homes of their own. When one handles all the business I had he can say that he had his hands full and to start with nothing, too. I leave it all to good health and hard work

.You and my wife are about the same age. She is my second wife. She was Preasha East. We married near Williamsville, Missouri in 1905. Came down here the next year and have been back many times.

We live close to the Warrior River that runs through Tuscaloosa, Get a map and you can locate us. Buhl is gone, just a school, post office, and a few stores. I put the first mill in Buhl, layed off the streets and planted shade trees. Now there are about 16”   through. At one time there were 600 houses there. Now they are gone. Only two are there. Write us again soon, Come to see. Us.

Your Uncle John Graham/          

Privet Hedges

I hate privet hedges. In the mid 1900s privet hedges were used in southern landscapes as cheap fences. A row of bushes 3 feet apart would soon grow into a dense barrier. If untamed they might grow 15 feet high and serve as a windbreak or feeding station for birds unlucky to be stuck in Alabama during the winter.

Mama Annice found them as an effective source of deterrent to negative behavior. The hedge that separated our front yard form the back was a row 30 feet long and maintained at a height of 32 inches with shears operated by youngsters who were aware of the punishment that could be dealt out by too long branches that could be used as switches. They did switch off rebellious attitudes, sibling fights, and various mischievous endeavors. Even when Mama was in her 80s great grandchildren knew that the skinny 30 in branch care stripped of leaves lying above the door frame was an enforcer of house rules. There would be no picking at  younger kids or fighting, no tracking mud on a clean freshly mopped floor, and no backtalk in that house.

The bush nearest the house was allowed to grow longer to make switches available instantly. The worst time was when you were sent to get the instrument for punishment for your own misdeeds.  The crafty kid who chose a switch under 20 inches would be sent back for a more persuasive size. This served to heighten the drama for the unpenitent, as well as provide a warning for those who had their own plans for mutiny.

No one ever said wait until your father gets home. Swift and certain were deemed to be the most effective way of maintaining discipline and keeping order. Back then no one ever thought of saying, "You're not my mother!" If you were at her house and guilty you shared the verdict. Parents loved to send their kids down to our place for a week. They would be well fed, get plenty of sunshine and fresh air, a lot of genuine affection, and new, more positive ways of behaving.

So they had a purpose. The birds ate the berries. Boundaries for front and back were established and weekly chores with clippers gave us a little chance for shorter, softer switches.

Now privet, Wisteria vines, and Bradford pears are taking over my yard and garden and are blocking my view of the highway. Anyone need a cheap growing fence?  With behavior modification potential?

 

Dorothy Gast
ddgast1@aol.com

Romulus School

http://www.alabamapioneers.com/test/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=34&Itemid=80

ROMULUS SCHOOL by Dorothy Graham Gast

Written by Dorothy Graham Gast

Friday, 21 June 2013 18:00

ROMULUS SCHOOL by Dorothy Graham Gast       One of the best things about living in the same place for many years is the many layers of memories. Grandpa and Grandma Graham lived in the big house on the top of the hill looking southeast to Romulus School. When I was growing up my brothers and sisters walked past their barn, through their back yard, then the apple orchard onto the school grounds.       In warm weather our socks were wet from the dew covered grass in the path; in winter we crunched the spewed up icicles from the frozen ground. We caught the scent of apple blossoms over our heads in March and popped maypops on the vines along the shallow terraces in hot September afternoons.        Grandpa loved the school's sports. He would bring a cane bottomed chair to the home base area to watch the recess softball games and cheer for both teams. Everyone knew that Mr. John was deaf but could read lips and carry on a conversation.         Double hung windows were nearer the ceilings than the oiled wooden floor and were high enough to let sunlight in and keep out distractions for the students. In winter they shivered  in their potbellied coal heated classrooms. Later in 1966 the wood frame five room building was deserted and the school was be consolidated with Ralph and Fosters schools to form the new Myrtlewood School. It was located at Fosters on Gainesville Road near US highway 11.          The Romulus building was used by the community for a meeting place. Bushes grew in the path we had walked and weeds filled the baseball field and the red clay basketball court where county champions had learned to compete with only 10 players in the junior high grades. There were five A team and 5 B team players. If anyone fouled out, team played with 4 players.         Eventually the spirit of the school that had been the center of the community for decades and the building with its fading white paint was gone, the structure bid out for $365 to be torn down and moved. Pine saplings grew around the abandoned outhouses and rabbits chased across the entrance yard.         Trees grew and the signs of its importance existed only in the memories of the students and  men who remembered setting out pine trees along the country road than formed the western boundary. Giant oak trees that provided shade along the road on the south leading to Fosters making the second boundary were cut down as both roads were widened and paved.        In 1997 the newly formed Romulus Fire Department asked and gained permission to build a station at that intersection and used proceeds from the pine grove in financing the metal building. Parking asphalt replaced pine straw.       Change multiplied in the rural cluster of neighborhoods called Romulus. A fire department increased the potential for new housing developments. The census count of 643 in 1990 quadrupled as clustered housing developments filled hills and hollows and changed the courses of creeks. Our children, then grandchildren, and great-grandchilden  caught school buses to go the larger brick building six miles east near the Warrior River and I 20/59. Two-car families sent both father and mother rushing toward Tuscaloosa to work.         Years passed. The new state-of -the-art Sipsey Valley High School and Middle School opened 3 miles from the empty playground behind Romulus Fire Department building. Now Google or Mapquest directions tell distances from the fire station or the new pair of schools. Only the oldest residents remember the old wooden school by the apple orchard and the honor of a having our own local school.

Barton Family Video

Bartons

Florence Barton Quarles resting under family pictures. ? She was very seldom still enough for a picture, always busy with good works.

Annice Barton Graham continuing the tradition os community service and good works.

Leland and Mamie Barton

John Leland and Mamie Cork Barton about 1960